Enver bey, who realized that he must make some move to justify the coup d'état of January 23d, gathered two army corps on the small boats which serve the Bosphorus villages and the Isles of Princes. It was his intention to land on the European shore of the Dardanelles, and take the Bulgarians in the rear. A few of his troops—the first that were sent—disembarked at Gallipoli, and, co-operating with the Dardanelles garrison, attempted an offensive movement against the Bulgarian positions at Bulair, which were bottling the peninsula. The attack failed ignominiously. For the Bulgarians, after dispersing the first bayonet charge by their machine-guns, were not content to wait for another attack. They scrambled over their trenches, and attacked the Turks at the point of the bayonet. The army broke, and fled. Some six thousand Turks were left on the field. The Bulgarian losses were trifling. On the same day, February 8th, and the following day, the rest of Enver bey's forces tried to land at several places on the European shore of the Sea of Marmora. For some reason that has never been explained, the Turkish fleet did not co-operate with Enver bey's attempted landings. Naturally the Turks were mowed down. At Sharkeuy it was simply slaughter. Three divisions were butchered. Those few who succeeded in getting foot on shore were driven into the sea and bayoneted. The two corps were practically annihilated.
After this exploit, Enver bey returned to Constantinople, and received the congratulations of the Grand Vizier whom he had created, by a murder, to redeem Turkey and recover Adrianople.
The inability to advance at Tchatalja and at Bulair, and the failure to land troops on the coasts of Thrace, entirely immobilized the Turkish armies during the second period of the war. They were content to sit and watch the fall of the three fortresses of Janina, Adrianople, and Scutari. At the moment of the coup d'état, I telegraphed that the whole miserable affair was nothing more than a party move of the "outs" to oust the "ins." The events confirmed this judgment. Mahmud Shevket pasha had no other policy than that of Kiamil pasha and Nazim pasha. He, and the Young Turk party, did absolutely nothing to relieve the situation. As soon as they thought they were safe from those who swore to avenge Nazim's death, they began again negotiations for peace, and on exactly the same terms.
In the meantime, the Greeks, who had not signed the armistice, decided that they must take Janina by assault. The worst of the winter was not yet over, but plans were made to increase the small Greek forces which had been practically inactive since the siege began. Janina had never been completely invested. When the Crown Prince arrived, he planned to capture the most troublesome forts, and from them to make untenable the formidable hills which commanded the city. The Greeks followed the plan with great skill and courage. Position after position was taken until the city was at the mercy of their artillery. During the night of March 5th, Essad pasha sent to Prince Constantino emissaries to surrender the city, garrison, and munitions of war without conditions.
The Crown Prince returned to Salonika in triumph. A few days later, the assassination of King George made him King. From this time on, the diplomatic position of Premier Venizelos, in his endeavour to keep within bounds the military party which had the ear of the new King, became most difficult. Even his great genius could not prevent the rupture with Bulgaria.
After the fall of Janina, the Bulgarian general staff realized that it was essential for them to force the capitulation of Adrianople, or to take the city by assault. As they had to keep a large portion of their army before Tchatalja and Bulair, it was decided that forty-five thousand Servians, with their siege cannon, should co-operate in the attack upon Adrianople. It was afterwards given by the Servians as an excuse for breaking their treaty with Bulgaria, that they had helped in the fall of Adrianople. But it must be remembered that the Bulgarian army, by its maintenance of the positions at Tchatalja and Bulair, was rendering service not to herself alone but to the common cause of the allies. Greece and Servia will never be able to get away from the fact that Bulgaria bore the brunt of the burden in the first Balkan War, and that her services in the common cause were far greater than those of either of her allies. One cannot too strongly emphasize the point, also, that the capture and possession of Adrianople did not mean to Bulgaria either from the practical or from the sentimental standpoint what Salonika meant to the Greeks and Uskub to the Servians. The Servian contingent before Adrianople was not helping Bulgaria to do what was to be wholly to the benefit of Bulgaria. The Servians were co-operating in an enterprise that was to contribute to the success of their common cause.
Adrianople had been closely invested ever since the battle of Kirk Kilissé. No army came to the relief of the garrison after the fatal retreat of October 24th. The Bulgarians had not made a serious effort to capture the city during the first period of the war. The armistice served their ends well, because each day lessened the provisions of the besieged. Inside the city Shukri pasha had done all he could to keep up the courage of the inhabitants. He himself was ignorant of the real situation at Constantinople. Perhaps it was in good faith that he assured the garrison continually that the hour of deliverance was at hand. By wireless, the authorities at Constantinople, after the coup d'état especially, kept assuring him that the army was advancing, and that it was a question only of days. So, in spite of starvation and of the continual rain of shells upon the city, he managed to maintain the morale of his garrison. The allies finally decided upon a systematic assault of the forts on all sides of the city at once. In this way, the Turks were not able to use their heavy artillery to best advantage. Advancing with scissors, the Bulgarians and Servians cut their way through the tangle of barbed wire. On the 24th and 25th, the forts fell one after the other. Czar Ferdinand entered the city with his troops on March 26th.
It was at the moment of this heroic capture, in which there was glory enough for all, that the clouds of trouble between Bulgaria and Servia began to appear on the horizon. Shukri pasha, following the old policy of the Turks, which had been so successful for centuries in the Balkan Peninsula, tried to surrender to the Servian general, who was too loyal to discipline to fall into this trap. But the Servian newspapers began to say that it was really the Servian army who had captured the city, and that Shukri pasha recognized this fact when he sent to find the Servian commander. There was an unedifying duel of newspapers between Belgrade and Sofia, which showed that the material for conflagration was ready.
In the second period of the war, the Servians gave substantial aid, especially in artillery, to the Montenegrins, who had been besieging Scutari ever since October 15th. I went over the mountain of Tarabosh on horse with an Albanian who had been one of its defenders. He related graphically the story of the repeated assaults of the Montenegrins and Servians. Each time they were driven back before they reached those batteries that dominated Scutari and made impossible the entry to the city without their capture. The loss of life was tremendous. The bravery of the assailants could do nothing against the miles and miles of barbed wire. No means of stopping assault has ever proved more efficacious. The besiegers were unable to capture Tarabosh. So they could not enter the city.
At the beginning of the war, Scutari was under the command of Hassan Riza pasha. In February, he was assassinated by his subordinate, Essad pasha, an Albanian of the Toptani family, who had been a favourite of Abdul Hamid, and had had a rather questionable career in the gendarmerie during the days of despotism. After the assassination of the Turkish commandant, it was for Albania and not for Turkey that Essad pasha continued the resistance. In March, Austria began to threaten the Montenegrins, and assure them that they could not keep the city. The story of how she secured the agreement of the Great Powers in coercing Montenegro is told in another chapter. Montenegro was defiant, and paid no attention to an international blockade. But on April 13th, the Servians, fearing international complications, withdrew from the siege. It was astonishing news to the world that after this, on April 22d, Essad pasha surrendered Scutari to the King of Montenegro, with the stipulation that he could withdraw with his garrison, his light artillery, and whatever munitions he might be able to take with him.